That you are paying undue attention to the contents of other folk's underwear is terse, but right on point. It's not your business. — Banno

All states, short of illnesses of certain types, are produced by the brain. Mental states are a result of neural activity in association with chemicals that are part of the intrinsic function of the brain. — Garrett Travers

How do I know that I can't comprehend God? — Zebeden

Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief. — creativesoul

The third: Reality can not make mistakes. The concept of a mistake does not exist within reality, it only exists within human perspective. In order for a mistake to be made there must first be an agreed upon correct outcome to an event, and considering that reality (Meaning the world in which we exist) exists outside of human consciousness and it's ability to assign correct and incorrect, this would mean that any event that happens within reality is not a mistake. — vanzhandz

To me this is just a complicated way of saying that by creating meaning for the decisions you make in life you are doing exactly what a human meant to do. — vanzhandz

Hypocrisy is our collective default state. — Bitter Crank

We could have an Asian trans-gender person; we could have an indigenous gay person, we could have a pissed off incel of whatever extraction. One barrier to having these types is that the supremes are usually selected from the cohort of experienced federal judges. There are not many Asian trans-gender, gay indigenous, pissed off Incel judges to start with, even fewer who are experienced. Maybe n=zero in that category.

Hence, have patience.

But were I appointing judges, I would not start with a transgendered person. The status of "transgender" is too unsettled at this point. — Bitter Crank

If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person. — Bitter Crank

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs. The term 'race' also distinguished between Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans, which is its primary meaning now.

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

What makes Whoopi Goldberg's statement relatively weak, is that 'man's inhumanity to man' is used to describe everything from really, really rude behavior to acts which are an abomination (like the holocaust was). — Bitter Crank

In any discussion of the mind the concept of dualism is unavoidable, as you say yourself: "We all know that the world has an effect on the mind and the mind affects the world", instantly setting up a dualism between the world and the mind. — RussellA

The SEP article concludes with the line: "While it is true that eliminative materialism depends upon the development of a radical scientific theory of the mind, radical theorizing about the mind may itself rest upon our taking seriously the possibility that our common sense perspective may be profoundly mistaken" — RussellA

When observing an apple, our mental representation of the apple must always be incomplete, in that we may only be looking at one or two sides, we may not be looking inside the apple, we may not be smelling the apple, etc. As our representation must inevitable always be incomplete, we can never represent the apple as you say "as it is".

The fact that any representation can never be complete does not mean that such representation is radically wrong, all we need is that such a representation is "good enough" for our present purposes. — RussellA

Between two objects in the world A and B we observe a spatial relationship - object A is to the right of object B. Because we observe a spatial relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the space between them, a thing called a "spatial relation" which exists as much as objects A and B.

Similarly, between two objects in the world A and B we observe a causal relationship - object A hits a stationary object B and object B moves. Because we observe a causal relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the interaction between them, a thing called a "causal relation" which exists as much as objects A and B. — RussellA

For us to apply our reasoning and judgements, it is sufficient that spatial and causal relationships exist in our mind — RussellA

To deny that relations have an ontological existence in the external world is not to deny that time, space, matter and forces don't exist. Why should the existence of an object in the external world depend on its being in an ontological relationship with something else ? — RussellA

Being an Indirect Realist, I believe the external world exists, but I don't know for certain. Isn't everyone a solipsist to some degree ? — RussellA

If the mind and everything else, such as a table, are the same type of thing, are tables conscious ? — RussellA

I assume because my mind is conscious, but my stomach isn't. — RussellA

Yes, as you say, "you can feel all sides of the apple even though you can't see all sides of the apple".

Because you cannot see the relationships on all sides of the apple, yet can feel the relationships on all sides of the apple, these missing relations must have originated in the mind, not the world. — RussellA

I don't know for certain that proto-consciousness is fundamental in the world, and even if it is, it is still beyond my understanding, but it is the least implausible explanation that I have come across.

Yes, it would follow that if I believed in panpsychism this would lead me to concluding that relations ontologically exist in the external world, which is why I tend to protopanpsychism which doesn't require such a conclusion. — RussellA

A white man identifying as a black woman? Cute. — TiredThinker

Why not an Asian trans-gender woman?
— Harry Hindu

Because she is a man, and has no insight into the plight of the North American Black peoples.

I mean she might have SOME insight, but no insight resulting from personal experience. That makes a HUGE difference. — god must be atheist

Why not an Asian
— Harry Hindu

All I good time. Have patience. — Bitter Crank

That'd be the last nail in the coffin of eliminativism, a most bizarre fancy... :-) Well done! — Olivier5

Yes, I should have written: "relations do exist, but in the mind, not in the external world". I agree that the mind is part of the world, having evolved in synergy with the world, possibly over a period of 800 million years. — RussellA

Steve French is misusing the term eliminativism (it seems to me).
Steve French relates eliminativism to objects in the world, such as tables. However, in philosophy, eliminativism is a theory about the nature of the mind, not about the nature of the external world. — RussellA

Where do relations exist, if they do exist.
For me, there is a mysterious difference between the mind and "external world", in that, although I believe that relations don't have an ontological existence in the external world, I do believe that relations have an ontological existence in the mind. — RussellA

As regards the mind of the observer, I know that I am conscious. I know that I have a unity of consciousness, in that what I perceive is a single experience. John Raymond Smythies described the binding problem as "How is the representation of information built up in the neural networks that there is one single object 'out there' and not a mere collection of separate shapes, colours and movements? I can only conclude, from my personal experience, that relations do have an ontological existence in my mind, such that when I perceive an apple, I perceive the whole apple and not just a set of disparate parts.

IE, relations do exist, but in the mind, not in the external world. — RussellA

Reductionism and eliminativism
Slightly back-tracking, I am reductionist as regards the "external world" and non-eliminativist as regards the mind. I feel that I can justify my belief in being a reductionist as regards the external world, but the binding problem is my only justification for my belief in non-eliminativism as regards the mind. My understanding of the unity of consciousness is as much as a goldfish's understanding of the allegories in The Old Man and The Sea.

IE, I would still argue that being a reductionist as regards the external world is a justified true belief. — RussellA

How can the mind be part of the world
The question is how to equate being reductionist about the external world and non-eliminativist about the mind. My answer is panprotopsychism, in that a proto-consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous in the world. This allows the mind to be part of the world, as well as allowing monism whilst avoiding the problems of dualism. Using an analogy (not an explanation), as the property of movement cannot be observed in a single permanent magnet, but only in a system of permanent magnets alongside each other, the property of consciousness cannot be observed in the physicalism of the external world, but only in a system of neurons having a particular arrangement within the brain.

IE, still keeping within physicalism and monism, the mind as a system has properties, such as consciousness, not observable in its individual parts, analogous to the property of movement in a system of permanent magnets not being observable in an individual permanent magnet, one of several examples of the weak emergence of new properties. — RussellA

IE, relations do exist, but in the mind, not the world. — RussellA

If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person. — Bitter Crank

We have to show that relations exist. We already know (from above) that, if relations exist, then they have the special ontological kind of existence required - because everything that exists has that special kind of existence. But we don't yet know whether relations exist. — Cuthbert

The Lego example is pretty contentious because you can recover an individual Lego from a block as opposed to say an atom which cannot, in principle, recovered from a molecule. — Ignoredreddituser

How does the relation "X is west of Y" exist in a universe with no minds? What's the ontological status of that relation? — RogueAI

Some Republicans say it is racist — TiredThinker

Yeah, you really need more old white men. Been working for hundreds of years, why change. — Banno

Stop it, Harry. You can't will that rational assessment freely like that. Others are required to provide that freedom to you in the form of not impinging it with violence, and vice versa. — Garrett Travers

Hence I agree with your "Only if we establish relationships towards others that are free, might we be free." — Banno

It's almost as if the domain of freedom requires individuals within that domain to value freedom for that domain to exist — Garrett Travers

Hence I agree with your "Only if we establish relationships towards others that are free, might we be free." — Banno

Hence I agree with your "Only if we establish relationships towards others that are free, might we be free." — Banno

The line that urged the thought upon me was "it must appear strange indeed that the faculty of the will whose essential activity consists in dictate and command should be the harborer of freedom". — Banno

So one can't wish for something without deciding and moving to obtain it? I desire chips, but I've not the will to get up and go to the shop. — Banno

That broken clock is working) has been proposed as the belief from the beginning. Any change was for elucidation only, not as a way to avoid valid objection. Evidently you do not understand what's being argued. — creativesoul

However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working. — creativesoul

I take it to mean, something that at least can be shared by different sentences (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “that guy called Jim loves Alice” ), by different propositional attitudes (e.g. I believe that Jim loves Alice, I hope that Jim loves Alice), by different languages (e.g. “Jim loves Alice” and “Jim aime Alice”) and determines their usage/fitness conditions. Those who theorize about propositions have richer answers than this of course (e.g. Frege’s propositions, Russell’s propositions, unstructured propositions, etc.). But I’m not a fan of these theories, so I’ll let others do the job.
Anyways, I hear people wondering about images as propositions or as having propositional content, without elaborating or clarifying, so this was my piece of brainstorming about this subject. — neomac

To know that I’m confusing the propositional content of that image, presupposes that you know what the propositional content of that image is. But I’m not convinced it’s that simple, see what you just wrote about that image: <it is a sheet of paper with red ink in shape of diamonds and a “7”> while you previously wrote something like: <it’s a seven of diamonds >. Is it essential for the propositional content of that image the mention of ink or paper? A seven of diamonds tattooed on the the body doesn’t share the same propositional content of the image on paper? How about the arrangement of the diamonds on the surface of the card? How about the shade of red? How about the change of light condition under which the image is seen? If I warped that image with an image editor to make it hardly recognisable but still recognisable after some time as a 7 of diamonds, shouldn’t we include in the propositional content of that image all the features that allowed me to recognise it as a 7 of diamonds, despite the warping? And so on…
Again, I’m just brainstorming, so no strong opinion on any of that. Indeed I was hoping to get some feedback from those who talk about propositional content of images, or images as propositions. — neomac

So one can't wish for something without deciding and moving to obtain it? I desire chips, but I've not the will to get up and go to the shop. — Banno

If you prefer. One thesis of the article is that, as a result of this, freedom has it's being in the shared space in which we live rather than in the privacy of what one wills. — Banno

However, after becoming aware of the fact that he believed that a broken clock was working, by showing him that clock had stopped, after becoming aware of exctly how he had come to believe that it was 3 o'clock, he could no longer believe that that clock was working. At this point in time, Jack could readliy admit to having once believed that that particular clock was working, and that that particular clock was broken at that time, so he had once believed that that particular broken clock was working. — creativesoul

This is obviously in tune with the point I've found myself obliged to make a few times recently, that ethics begins not when one considers oneself, but when one considers others. — Banno

Anyway, I'm linking to the Arendt essay in order to ask again her question: What is freedom?, and to give a space for considering her essay. Given the "freedom convoy" that trickled into Canberra yesterday, and the somewhat more effective equivalent in Canada, It seems appropriate. — Banno

Maybe regardless of any specific card game, but the challenge here is to express the propositional content of that image (something that an image can share with sentences, different propositional attitudes, different languages): so is the propositional content of that image rendered by “this is a seven of diamonds” or “this is a seven of diamonds in standard 52-card deck” or “this is a card of diamonds different from a 1 to 6 or 8 to 13 of diamonds” or “this is a seven of a suit different from clubs, hearts, spades” or “this is a card with seven red diamond-shaped figures and red shaped number seven arranged so and so” or any combination of these propositions? All of them are different propositions which one is the right one? BTW “this” is an indexical, and shouldn’t be part of the content of an unambiguous proposition: so maybe the propositional content is “something is a seven of diamonds”? And so on.
At least this is how I understand the philosophical task of proving that images have propositional content, but I'm neither sure that others understand this philosophical task in the same way I just drafted, nor that this task can be accomplished successfully. — neomac

But what about this? — frank

What I do not understand is the move to set (that broken clock) outside of the scope of Jack's belief and replace it with (that clock) when the example hinges upon the fact that the clock is broken but Jack believes what it says. Jack does not know it is broken, so he cannot believe that it is broken. I grant that much entirely, but there's no reason to say that he cannot believe that broken clock. — creativesoul

Jack believed that a broken clock was working.
— creativesoul

Is there a point? I don't understand how it is that you don't understand.

(Jack believed that a broken clock was working) is ambiguous.

Is (the clock is broken) within the scope of Jack's belief? Then you have Jack believed that: ((The clock is broken) & (the clock is working)); Poor old Jack needs help.

Or is it outside the scope? Then you have: The clock is broken and (Jack believed that: (the clock is working))

No problem. In both cases the belief is presented as a propositional attitude. — Banno

I don't know. What do you think? — frank

Just jump right in there and answer. — frank

What does a language that you don't know look like? And when describing what a language you know looks like, are you describing the language or your knowledge of the language? — Harry Hindu

First of all, I'm neutral on the question. I'm just exploring the implications.

I'm starting with the assumption that my beliefs are limited by the limits of my language.

Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:

Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds? — frank

Why some fucker would assert that is a different topic. Maybe we could start a thread:

Why do some fuckers believe the limits of their languages are the limits of their worlds? — frank

If someone says "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world" is this assertion self contradictory?

What is the pov of the assertion? I'm asking you because you're mentally flexible. You could probably see it better than me. — frank

Yep, this is correct if we take strings of characters, independently from any pre-defined linguistic codification. The difference is that with words (notice that the term “word” is already framing its referent, like an image, as a linguistic entity!) — neomac

You can have all kinds of sets of rules (e.g. the codification of traffic signs). Concerning the problem at hand, one thing that really matters is to understand if/what systems of visual codifications disambiguate an image always wrt a specific proposition: think about the codified images of a deck of cards. Does e.g. the following card have a propositional content that card game rules can help us identify? What would this be? — neomac

I totally agree there is an objective truth. I even know what it is at the physical fundament. Still, it's a story. — Cornwell1